Recently, major irregularities came to light regarding some bank accounts of Haryana Government. Due to wrongful withdrawal of government money deposited in IDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank, many questions have started being raised regarding the Fixed Deposit (FD) made in the bank. Meanwhile, a report has increased the troubles of investors. According to this report, there are many big names in the country who are receiving lakhs of complaints related to FD alone.
The latest report of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ‘Annual Report of Ombudsman Schemes 2025-26’ has revealed a major problem of the banking sector. According to this government report, there has been a flood of complaints regarding fixed deposits (FD) among the country’s three largest banks, State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC and ICICI. SBI has the worst record in this, against which more than 6.8 lakh complaints alone have been filed. The biggest issue among these complaints is the delay in getting the money after the maturity of FD and the irregularities regarding interest rates.
If we compare according to statistics, then due to the number of customers of SBI and its reach, it also has the highest number of complaints. Even private banks are no longer lagging behind in this matter. RBI report shows that complaints against HDFC and ICICI Bank have increased by about 11% to 12% this year. The difference is clearly visible in the report that while in SBI people are troubled by the slowness of paperwork and the behavior of the staff, the customers of HDFC and ICICI Bank are facing modern problems like technical glitches in the mobile app and money being deducted from the account without any information.
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What problems do customers face?
The biggest dispute among these three banks is regarding ‘pre-mature withdrawal’ i.e. breaking the FD before time. Customers often complain that banks did not inform them about hidden charges. The second big problem comes with the nominee. After the death of a family member, bankers run around and ask for such documents which the common man does not have.
Apart from this, there have been many cases in banks like ICICI and HDFC where the bank ‘auto-renewed’ the FD without asking, due to which the customer faced difficulty in withdrawing his money when needed.
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What reforms are needed?
This report of RBI clearly states that the complaints related to FD and bank accounts in the entire banking system have now reached 17%, which is a big thing. In the report, these three big banks have been given strict instructions to keep their working methods clean and write all the rules of FD in simple language, so that even a less educated person can understand them without any problem.
Overall, while SBI needs to improve its old and sluggish system and make it new, private banks like HDFC and ICICI need to improve their online security and the way they interact with customers, so that people’s trust remains on them.
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